Mumbai, June 26 (IANS) Air India’s top management is holding a meeting with employees’ representatives Friday night here to discuss its proposals to cut wage costs.
Both sides held a meeting Thursday, but failed to reach a consensus on the cash-strapped airline’s proposals to cut costs.

Union leaders have said that they would not accept any proposal to cut employees’ salaries.

The airline also stuck to its stand and said that it would delay the June salaries of its around 31,000 employees by 15 days.

Meanwhile, Air India employees Friday staged a protest demonstration outside the domestic terminal of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi against the airline’s decision to defer salaries.

Air India officials said they were working on setting up committees that would assess the reasons for the current financial problems of the airline, officials said.

On Wednesday, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed with him a bailout plan for the airline.

The prime minister suggested him to adopt various cost-cutting measures to improve the financial condition of the National Aviation Company India Ltd (NACIL), which owns Air India.

After the meeting, Patel said the government would support the loss-making carrier, but stopped short of spelling out the size and nature of the package.

Air India, which incurred a loss of Rs.4,000 crore last fiscal, plans to ask for a Rs.10,000-crore (about $2 billion) bailout package from the central government.

Air India chairman Arvind Jadhav, Civil Aviation Secretary M. Madhavan Nambiar and other senior ministry and airline officials had met the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, T.K.A. Nair, Monday to discuss the issue.